[vox-tech] vim and utf-8 support (newbie alert)

[Peter Jay Salzman]

dear all,

about an hour ago, i finally learned what ISO 10646, unicode, utf-2,
utf-4 and utf-8 are.  i never knew any of that stuff before today.

still don't know what a codepage is, but that can wait because i *think*
it's microsoft related.


when you use vim, i assume:

* that what you type is encoded with ascii or latin-1.
* the encoding is related to the characters you see on the xterm
   via the font the xterm is using.
* the "stuff inside the encoding" (what gets encoded) is related to the
   keys that you press with your fingers via a vim keymap.

and when you want to use a foreign language with vim, the best way to do
that is:

* start an xterm with a suitable font: "xterm -fn <fontname> -e vim"
* use utf-8 encoding which uses encodes unicode and ISO10646 text.
* load a suitable keymap to help make entering text easier.


is all this correct so far?  even in a "touchy-feely" way?   i'm a
complete newbie in this topic.

if this is about correct, how does one tell vim to encode the text using
utf-8?

and how do you tell vim "i want to use language X whose characters are
unicode number UT-Y through UT-Z?   or doesn't it work quite that way?

pete

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